Bees

E sent me to a beekeeping seminar for an early birthday present! Now I have a bee in my bonnet. This is going to be so exciting. Some dumpster diving at GRCC landed me some 1x12 that I can use to construct a couple top bar hives on the cheap. I'll need to sand the paint off one side and trim them to size but that'll give me something to do this winter besides unpack the basement.

New phones.

I can  blog directly from my phone. Let's see if it works.

Chickpeas!

Oh Boy Oh Boys

I keep starting this sentence and going back and deleting it because I just don't know where to start.  I am frustrated.  The boys are so rambunctious and play so rough that it crosses the line into violence way too much for my taste.  I get scared for their safety and rightly so.  Today Noa is sporting a big goose egg on his head from Ian hitting him with a trowel and Henry has a welt over his eye where Noa hit him with something.  If anyone has any ideas as to what would dilute their little vivacious personalities I am willing to listen.  Do you think a puppy would make them more loving or is this something that only time will cure?  (Like we need another mouth to feed!) On days when it is bad I wonder if Aaron and I somehow contribute to this?  Both of us having been guilty of temper tantrums of our own and the occasional angry spank.  Both of us hate how we feel like we are constantly yelling at them.  (Although I think that has gotten better since our lives have become less stressful.  You know, having a place to live and a job.)  Anyway does our anger teach them to respond in anger?  Are we teaching them good anger management?  I am suspicious that these are totally normal feelings of parenting.  Where is that balance of not coddling your children or being too restrictive?  I feel like I bounce between the two extremes and then I am 'inconsistent' - supposedly the biggest sin!  Such a tough job, this parenting thing...

On a better note.  We are happy to report the boys now have real beds.  Up off the ground, mattresses, box springs, frames, bottom and top sheet, kind of real beds.  Their room looks like a nice, cute, messy, little boy room and they love them!  Hopefully this will help quell some of the bedtime battles and shenanigans that have been going on.  It is hard to set boundaries like staying in your own bed and not bouncing when there is no physical boundary between your bed and the floor.  Ok, just to clarify, they had mattresses of a sort, they were just on the floor.  We couldn't set the bunk bed back up that they had in Chicago, because they now have an attic bedroom with little ceiling clearance.  We have also taken the change of routine as a good time to put the foot down with Noa and tell him he will be going to sleep by himself now.  Daddy will not be laying in his bed anymore since there 'just isn't room'.  I am downstairs now and listening to how it is going and I have to say there is a big difference tonight.  Fingers crossed it isn't just a fluke!  Once and awhile we get something right!

Ok, I have to go to bed now myself.  Thanks for listening!

Some Pics

 

 

The top pics are from our visit to Willis (aka Sears) Tower.  I had to take the boys up there before we moved.  Working on the glass boxes was one of my first projects after graduating so it was especially fun to bring them.  Ian at least understood that this was something I did because yesterday he drew a picture of a construction site at the tower and it was all girls working there and then in the middle of the tower is a woman working at a computer.  He tells me that's me.  It hangs in my cubicle at work now.  Love love love it!!

 

The boys are just adorable these days when they aren't demons just landed straight from hell.  Ok, that was a little melodramatic.  I have found that it isn't their behavior that changes, it's my reaction to it.  Some days it rolls off my back and some days I scream.  Good thing I'm not working on perfection anymore...




Noa just celebrated his third birthday and today Henry is 16 months old.  Hard to believe my little guys are growing up.  Now I kinda get why people end up having so many kids.  That first year is soooo hard, but somehow as you get away from it all you remember is the eked out little moments of bliss (probably just a delusion brought on by lack of sleep and hormones in the first place).  No really - sometimes I love being up at 3am, when all is quiet and I have a warm little body totally snuggled in my lap and nursing.  This is why I am still nursing Henry at 16 months.  Why not?  He loves it and so do I.
And when he is done, there won't be another - because three little munchkins are enough for this momma.  Speaking of which - I really gotta get to bed.  Good night.

Back Again!

Hi. I have been informed that I only have a couple of days to write a new post or it will have been a whole year since I've blogged.

It's been a busy year... I lost my job at the end of July 2011 and became a stay at home Mom. I envisioned myself as having a lot more free time if I wasn't working. Another fantasy slapped in the face by reality!! Any free time I could eke out of the day went towards sending out resumes and making phone calls. I had no idea I was going to end up being out of work for 7 months!!

All worked out for us as it always does. Aaron was able to go full time at his job immediately, we had my unemployment, and I was able to get inisurance through the state of IL for the boys. In that way we have been luckier than some who have been hit by this recession. We certainly haven't made it unscathed since we still have our house in GR that we can't sell, I have struggled with work, and we are always trying to make ends meet and still pay off my student loans, but in the big scheme of things - all is fundementally well.

As I said, it all worked out. I was getting pretty frustrated with the job market, we were getting to the end of our lease in Chicago, and I had just been turned down for a job in Boulder, CO when I heard about a position open with a company back in GR. The short story is that I got the job. Perfect synchronicity. Makes you think that maybe there is some ultimate force that is looking after our family. Then we had three weeks to find a place to live, a school for Ian, and get moved before they wanted me to start my new job. Whew!! That was a whirlwind!! But so worth it.

We are soooo happy to be out of Chicago and back in the prettiest state in the Union just in time for a glorious spring and summer. Ian started school the same day I started work at Child Discovery Center where he had all of six weeks of kindergarten. The nice thing is that they have a combined k-1 classroom so he can catch up next year - although his teacher thinks he is right on target (but I know he is brilliant and really would be far ahead of his peers if he had been doing full day kindergarten all year). If you follow the link to his school you will see the classrooms listed - he is in Discovery B if you want to see what they have been up to. We also applied to 'school of choice' for Forest Hills School District to see if we can get him into the beautiful new school near my work. Someday when we can buy a house again I think it will be out this way so it would be a logical choice. We shall see.

Henry is becoming quite a clown as his personality begins to shine. I love watching him play with his brothers. His favorite thing is to just hang out in the yard and watch the excitment on the swing. He is just deciding to walk now - at almost 16 mos! Such a lazy baby. He took his first steps just after we moved here and is now beginning to chose to walk all by his big boy self. Can't wait 'til all three are running willy nilly through the house! We have also seemed to have adopted three neighborhood kids who come from a family of 12 and spend a lot of time at their grandma's house on the corner. So since summer break began, Aaron has 6 kids running crazy! Thank goodness for the swing, sandbox and big yard. Lately they have been putting on little skits for our enjoyment. Mary - those costumes you've made are getting lots of use! I love love love it!

Noa just turned three (can't believe it!)and is such an imp! He is such a physical kid and is happiest when he is jumping from the highest point he can find. This one makes me nervous! There were bets going on at his party as to which boy would break a bone first. Little did we know that Ian was running around with a broken arm at the time!

I will post pics or video soon! (I promise it won't be a whole year this time!)

Our children

Just this week I:
removed rocks from the garbage disposal(my fault),
pulled broken glass out of the toilet along with our toothbrushes (Noa),
mopped a quarter inch of soapy water off the floor in the kitchen (Noa).
Noa also took it upon himself to upend all of my flower seedlings and was working on the potatoes when I caught him.
Ian on the other hand has taken charge of washing the dishes. He actually asked to wash dishes more often yesterday than asking to watch a movie. Granted he washes them at a glacially slow pace but he does a good job. Now this does not mean I can wander off because Noa wants to help and that is how we end up mopping the floor if we're not too careful.

Thank you again Whit and Joe for the duplo. It is out every day and the boys are crafting new and interesting vessels. Sky boats (powered by clean fuel Ian says) and submarines (yellow ones!) are popular lately. The sprinkler is also a huge success! Now if only he would not so enthusiastically water the vegetables. I keep explaining that watering, while essential, will kill a plant if it is under 6 inches of water.

Noa and Henry just had their wellness checkups and passed with flying colors. Both boys are hale and hearty.